Asked what big problem he wished more people were working on, Ben Lamm, co-founder and CEO of the de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, said the world needs to back up its wildlife. By this he means freezing samples of species before they disappear.
"I think that we are going to lose half of biodiversity in the next 25 years," Lamm said, adding that "everyone who loves us and hates us agrees with that." Biodiversity is the variety of living species. Lamm's view is that the problem is too large for the institutions that usually take it on: "this is not going to be solved by a zoo or a nonprofit." Instead, he called for "billions of dollars of federal funding across multiple governments working together to at least back up life."
Lamm spoke at Moonshots Live 2026, a live recording of the Moonshots podcast hosted by Peter Diamandis, founder of XPRIZE and Singularity University. The session was recorded on September 25, 2026, and the episode was published on September 30.
What backing up life means
The practice Lamm is describing is known as biobanking. The U.S. Interior Department defines it as long-term cryopreservation, or deep-freezing, of living materials such as tissues and cell lines so they can support future research and the management of animal populations. A frozen sample does not keep a species alive in the wild. It keeps a record of its cells and genetic material that scientists could study or draw on later.
Lamm compared this to what people already do with their digital lives: we back up our photos, our texts and our emails. He argued that the same logic should apply to species now, through investment in infrastructure, because losing them would harm ecosystems and the food webs other animals depend on.
An argument aimed at everyone
Lamm framed his case so it would work whatever a listener cares about. If you like ecosystems, he said, you should back species up. If you don't care about the environment but like animals, you should back them up. And if you care about neither but care about people, you should still back them up, "because there's data in there that will help humanity."
A parallel from human medicine
Diamandis answered with an example from his own business. One of his companies, Cellularity, runs Life Bank USA, which stores a baby's placental cells at birth. He described the stored material as a kind of original starting point holding the child's stem cells, T cells and natural killer cells. "If your baby came with an extra set of organs, would you throw them away? Probably not," he said, calling the placenta "the 3D printer that creates the baby." He called the idea of biological backups "amazing."
How far the projects have got
Diamandis then asked whether this is what Colossal is doing in Dubai. Lamm said it is, and described several strands.
Dubai. In its project description, Colossal presents a planned repository at the city's Museum of the Future. It would hold millions of frozen tissue and cell samples from more than 10,000 species. The plan includes the 100 most imperilled species worldwide and in the United Arab Emirates, though the description says that list was still being finalised. Colossal calls the site the first in an international network, with public laboratories next to the storage.
The United States. Lamm said Colossal had "just announced a partnership with U.S. Fish and Wildlife" as part of the Secretary of the Interior's directive on backing up "the natural resources that make America great." The Interior Department's announcement is dated June 25, 2026. It describes a memorandum of understanding between the Fish and Wildlife Service and Colossal, an agreement that sets out how the two sides plan to cooperate. It covers identifying biobanking opportunities, bringing genomic information into conservation planning, improving how data is accessed and managed, and building training capacity. The memorandum does not obligate the expenditure of federal funds; any future projects involving funding, services or property transfers would be subject to separate agreements and applicable legal requirements.
Other governments. Lamm said two more governments are part of Colossal's framework but have not been announced. He said they will be named when those governments choose to announce.
Open participation. Lamm said the effort is "completely open" to nonprofits, academic institutions, large foundations and private individuals who want to put money in. He likened this to the open-source approach he discusses with a colleague named George. When Alexander Wissner-Gross joined in teasing about a secret billionaires' chat group, Lamm replied: "No comment. I'm not in any secret chat groups."